


Boxes

by HollowSoldat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky likes boxes, F/M, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Angst, War Veteran Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 20:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11169816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HollowSoldat/pseuds/HollowSoldat
Summary: Bucky adopts all kinds of strange practices since Steve rescued him in Romania, one of which involves boxes...





	1. Bucky

_You must take your medicine Barnes.  
_

_Did you take your meds today Buck?  
_

_Ready for more tests Frosty?_ _  
_

_You look a mess James.  
_

_Comply, Soldat._

 

Why couldn't everyone just leave him alone? Bucky was sick of people "helping", he'd been doing just fine on his own, why couldn't they see that? For two whole years he hadn't hurt anyone. He'd been doing fine. He had his hideout, he fed himself, clothed himself, he was safe and so was everyone else while he stayed off the radar. He wasn't ready to be found and then ... Captain  _frickin_ ' America broke in, tailed by a whole squad of SWAT police hot on his tail. 

The days after that were pretty much history, Civil War and all that drama ... then again, Bucky's head was fuzzy these days. Who really cared for the specifics anyway? They fought, Tony blasted his arm off, Steve dropped his shield, Zemo was arrested and most of the world moved on, eventually. Once Tony cooled off, he and T'Challa decided to try and pull the HYDRA shit out of Bucky's head. General Ross vehemently disagreed with any idea other than locking him up entirely, but T'Challa was steadfast, something about needing to find peace or atone for ... _whatever._  Ross knew better than to take on the King of Wakanda, so Bucky got to walk. Steve moved to a slightly bigger apartment, one that could house _two_ super soldiers comfortably. It was a two bed apartment, Steve thought it would be a good idea, if Bucky ever needed to lock himself away somewhere quiet for a while and it had worked out nicely too. Having his own space was important when he needed to get away but Steve needed to know Bucky was safe. Despite having a second room, fully furnished to boot, Bucky always crawled into Steve's bed late at night without fail. Even after an argument, Steve would stare at the stucco ceiling punishing himself for yelling back or losing his patience, then the floorboard just outside the door, three paces from the sofa would squeak, other than that, Bucky's movements were silent. Then the blankets would shift and Bucky would be curled up beside Steve wordlessly and things were okay again. Other days were much better, without any arguments at all, Bucky was a good cuddler, despite the unwieldy metal arm. Grudges aside, Tony was fascinated by the arm he'd blown off of Bucky and had had it 'recovered' for examination in his lab. Steve knew Tony saw it as yet another fun toy and didn't interfere, Bucky needed an arm and Tony was going to make one. The replacement was alright, it took some getting used to and Tony insisted he was working on more adjustments and improvements. Making the arm more lightweight and dealing with the temperature issues were on the list. The problem with the external arm itself was only a puzzle piece, beneath the surface HYDRA had messed up more than his left arm stump, parts of his shoulder and collarbone had been replaced to keep the external prosthetic stable and counterbalance the weight and those parts weren't as easily adjusted as the external metal limb. Bucky's recovery was proving to be a long and arduous process, testing even Steve's super-stamina at times. 

Today Bucky was quiet, but it wasn't for lack of things to say, the problem was no one really took in what he said. No one _listened_ to Bucky these days even though they  _said_ they wanted his input. Steve, damn him, listened but he didn't understand. He fretted over every thing so Bucky knew better than to tell him too much. Nat understood but, it was difficult for them to talk. Too much history there, they both preferred it stayed buried and respected each others boundaries. Tony and T'Challa were the worst listeners by far, Bucky rarely even tried. In a room full of scientists, he was the lab rat and they were the geniuses. Sentience didn't equate to smarts, he could veto the particularly gruesome procedures, he could refuse a treatment or a test, but no one  _listened_ and it was damn frustrating. For all the looking and poking they did, those boffins couldn't really see his thoughts and they were too busy being poindexters to listen. 

He was also frustrated and impatient. He'd agreed to Ross and Steve and Tony and T'Challa's terms. He'd stay in the apartment or with Steve or go to the handful of "safe" locations they allowed him to wander to when he was going stir-crazy. He'd go to his appointments, he wouldn't cause trouble. Just to be safe, Bucky was absolutely positive Tony had installed a tracking mechanism into the new prosthetic arm. It was mildly frustrating, but at the same time, Bucky could hardly fault him for doing it after all the mess he'd made.

The apartment was clean ... or at least as clean as it was going to be with two soldiers living in it. Steve was neat and tidy,  _Mr Fucking Perfect_ , Bucky couldn't help but revel in the irony of the nations Super Hero Poster Boy being a secret slob, but alas, Steve was anything but. Bucky on the other hand had attempted to compensate ... Then he realised he was at home most of the day with nothing to do and sitting in the mess even irritated him after a while. So he kept the place tidy too. If nothing, it killed a few hours and Steve seemed pleased to come home to a clean sink instead of dirty dishes. 

Steve had left early in the morning, before Bucky had even stirred. On the occasion Bucky  _was_ able to sleep soundly at night, Steve didn't dare wake him, even though that meant Bucky would wake later in an empty bed which saddened him just a little. As usual, Steve left a note on the fridge, spelled out with letter magnets, that was actually Sam's idea. Forget Tony and T'Challa, Sam was the real genius in the bunch. The magnets were a godsend when Bucky wasn't in the mood to communicate with anyone, they also came in handy when the fridge was running low and they needed to make a shopping list. Steve had taken to using the fridge magnets to leave cheesy and encouraging messages in the morning when he went out if he was up before Bucky. It was as endearing as it was irritating. 

Bucky shoved aside Steve's latest message _"I like your smile"_ _,_ so he could leave his own warning.

 _Thinking_  

Steve knew that  _any_ kind of warning on the fridge was Bucky's way of letting him know he didn't trust himself not to do or say something he'd regret if Steve came on too strong. It was a warning for Steve to step back and let Bucky initiate conversation or contact when he felt ready because for some reason or another, it wasn't the right time for him. 

He decided to be good today and took his tablets. Three purple ones to prevent his seizures, one green for the pain from his arm, and a yellow one to stave off headaches. Bucky hated taking his tablets because he was convinced they made his memory hazy, as if it wasn't already bad enough. Tony and T'Challa argued otherwise, his memory lapses were due to the brainwashing and the therapies and treatments. His memory would return in time, if ever, and the medicine would neither help nor hinder it. He grabbed three plums from the fruitbowl and retreated to the bedroom to confront the stack of boxes he and Steve hadn't properly unpacked since moving in. Some things had found their forever-home on the shelf or in the cupboard, such as the mugs and bowls and plates, but the bookshelf was still empty, the wardrobe and chest of drawers had only been half filled and the walls were completely bare.  

He grabbed three of the boxes and upturned them in the middle of the floor. When they moved in, things were boxed practically. The plates with the plates, clothes in the clothes boxes, books with books and pictures ... But while Steve was out, Bucky had taken to unpacking things and then reboxing them, not based on objects or purposes ... but based on how much he could remember. 

Steve had had all sorts of interesting things. New books, books from the 40s, vintage and modern things all mixed in. So Bucky tried to remember those.  
Things he remembered went into the box on the left, things he didn't remember or were definitely new went into the box on the right. Then he'd delve even deeper into the bits he could remember. Rather than separating old and new, he organised memories by how recent they were.

  
_Steve wore this shirt last Tuesday. We went to Coney Island again.  
_

_This is a new book. Has Steve read this one yet?_

_Think Bucky, think ... Dammit._

  
For that habit alone he was certain he deserved the worlds worst roommate award but Steve didn't complain, if it was helping his memory it was a necessary nuisance ... Every couple of days Steve would have to almost dismantle the place to find a particular book or shirt because the contents of the boxes changed each time Bucky performed this exercise. It was one of many mind games Bucky played trying to piece things together and trying to get better. Even though his memory blanks and seizures created huge problems, one thing that didn't waver was his desire to get better and help Steve. Steve suffered too in his own quiet way. Despite his new, wonderful friends, Bucky knew Steve sometimes felt that they only people they had left in the world, in _their_ world, was each other.

Right now, the only things in Bucky's world were two boxes and a mishmashed pile of objects that were his and Steve's and he had to figure out what went in left-box and what went in right-box. He had to get it right this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


	2. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a lot on his plate. Between Tony, T'Challa and the fallout from the Accords, HYDRA splinter groups and of course his amnesiac boyfriend ... some days are harder than others.

Steve liked to tell himself he wasn't a control freak. In fact, he really wasn't. That, or he was a particularly terrible control freak. What kind of control freak allowed their possibly-Boyfriend (they'd never officially put a name on it of course but Steve liked to think that was what they were) to regularly rearrange everything in their apartment without uttering the faintest complaint.

Sometimes, on days when Bucky was having a particularly difficult morning, Steve took the 'long way' home on purpose. The long way involved walking around the entire block instead of just walking directly home. Surely a  _real_ control freak would confront the chaos and try reign it in rather than avoid it entirely! 

Steve tried to keep a routine, partly for Bucky's sake, but also to preserve his own sanity, but life was anything but routine with Bucky. Just when Steve thought he'd figured something out or that he'd discovered a pattern, Bucky would change suddenly or something would debunk his discovery. Steve would find himself back at square one starting all over again. 

This morning Steve got up before Bucky. It was a good and bad thing. 

Good because Bucky had slept through the night without jolting awake, drenched in a terrified cold sweat gasping raggedly to draw breath. Good because Steve hadn't woken up in an empty bed to find Bucky pacing their flat like a caged lion, or hanging miserably half-in and half-out the window smoking. Steve hoped that when Bucky was in a better frame of mind he would try and kick the habit but as the point currently stood, Bucky's nicotine fix ranked pretty low on the list of more pressing matters. 

Getting up before Bucky also had its drawbacks. 

Steve used the mornings to try get a bit of a measure on where his head was at, even though Buck's moods could change on a moments notice, Steve liked to get a heads up if it was going to be a particularly bad day. He also hated jetting off in the morning without saying a proper goodbye or a  _see ya at dinner_. He knew better than to interrupt Bucky's rest but the morning could feel pretty damn lonely with no one sitting on the opposite side of the table or leaning on the counter teasing your choice of button-down shirt. 

Bucky had slept in, Steve elected to take it as a good sign this morning. If nothing else, it made him try to worry just a little less. 

Ever since the dissolution of the Sokovia Accords, Steve had found himself splitting his time between liaising with the UN security council and mopping up HYDRA splinter groups whenever trouble cropped up. Fighting HYDRA was easier than playing politics and Steve could barely stand to sit through yet another council meeting to try and hammer out a more robust agreement in lieu of the failed Accords. He done it for Tony's sake. Tony hadn't been wrong in his intentions with the original Accords, he'd just been hasty. Besides, he kind of felt he owed Tony something after their fight. If all he asked was for Steve to chair some meetings and talk, he could do it.

General Ross wasn't quite so negotiable, especially since he thoroughly opposed Steve "harbouring a dangerous international terrorist", as he called it. Steve begged to differ. 

Bucky wasn't dangerous, he was recovering. He wasn't international, he was born and bred in the USA. He certainly wasn't a terrorist, he was a veteran and a victim.

Of course he didn't argue Ross on it, at least not using those words, his more tactile response was akin to 'he's been granted refuge in the United States at the behest of His Royal Highness, King T'Challa of Wakanda'. Having the support of a Wakandan monarch opened quite a lot of doors it seemed. 

Steve was particularly antsy after an exceptionally tense meeting where once again, virtually no progress was made. Steve was a soldier not a politician and his thoughts were away with Bucky. 

It was Natasha who seemed to notice the distance in his eyes and the slight furrow in his brow as he leaned on the glass staring vacantly out the window. 

"Thought you were going catatonic in there Rogers, you sure its your boyfriend who needs his head checked and not you?" she joked, looking every bit as effortless in a neatly tailored blazer and pencil skirt as she did in battle.

Natasha had a talent for looking entirely in control of herself, even when things were going to shit. Rogers had seen a break in that facade before. Briefly, when they'd been on the run from a HYDRA-infested SHIELD. She'd wondered if she'd ever been fighting the right battle or if she constantly found herself on the wrong side, swapping the KGB for HYDRA. 

One look at her now and you'd never guess the internal struggle that occasionally surfaced. 

"How's he doing?" she asked softly. 

Bucky was one topic that brought her vulnerability to the surface. Steve knew there was some history there between them, but both the Black Widow and Winter Soldier kept it buried deep. Steve knew better than to pry. 

"He was asleep when I left this morning, but he has more good days than bad" Steve answered truthfully. 

It was hard to lie to Nat, she had some kind of lie-detecting powers built into her brain that went off if you so much as tried to fib. That was probably why she never lost a game of cards. 

"And what makes a  _good_ _day_ , Steve?" she asked, emphasising the "good" part in particular. 

"On a good day he doesn't have bad headaches or nightmares ... He gets dressed instead of curling on the sofa in whatever he slept in the night before. On a good day he talks and we can go get groceries together." 

Saying it aloud ... Steve realised good days for him didn't sound particularly appealing, but they were a damn lot better than bad ones so he'd take what he could get. 

"I'd hate to come over on a bad day" Nat noted. 

"You can say that again" Steve exhaled, but then turned to look at Nat, seriously. 

So many people wanted him to give up on Bucky, he could tell from their pitiful looks or how they avoided eye contact entirely. 

"He has his moments Nat. Even if its just for an hour, when everything HYDRA done to him, all of it just vanishes and I'm not Captain America anymore and he's not the Winter Soldier ... I'm just Steve, he's just Bucky and we're just two normal guys from Brooklyn again." 

It had been a long time since he'd had any relief like that. Seeing Peggy, beautiful as ever despite the passage of time, had been painful. He was reminded of how much he's lost or missed out on. Even though Bucky had changed, and changed terribly in ways, sometimes ... just sometimes, they were both given the luxury to forget. 

"It's nice to just ... be something other than the shield of the uniform again. Before he fell, Buck once said he wouldn't follow Captain America into war ... he'd follow me. I let him down. I'm not letting that happen again and those good moments remind me what I'm fighting for." 

Nat was quiet for a moment. A respectful kind of quiet, not a particularly judgemental silence. Steve wondered if she'd had friends of her own in the KGB, in the Red Room. Was there someone she'd wished to save that she couldn't? 

"Thats something worth fighting for" she agreed. 

"I need to find some reason to put up with the madness in my apartment" Steve laughed wearily. 

"Is it the notebooks again? I thought he'd stopped doing that" Nat asked. 

The mere mention made Steve chuckle with a little more mirth this time. 

Bucky's memory journals, Steve had learned not to flip through them. It was an incredibly intimate thing for Bucky. They weren't just diaries or idle thoughts, it was a collection of scattered memories and feelings, fragments of his entire life. Steve didn't invade and in his own time Bucky opened up old memories, once he was sure he'd remembered all the details correctly of course and in the correct order. Bucky's annoying habit with the notebooks was his penchant to leave them absolutely everywhere. 

Steve had found one in the toaster once and that was when he had to draw the line. If nothing else, it was a fire hazard. 

From then, the notebooks (as they surfaced from their many hiding places) had to follow a new rule. The books lived in a box titled "memory books", written in Russian, English and Romanian, just to emphasise the point. The box lived in the kitchen on the counter and Bucky followed the rule ... Most of the time. On one occasion when he'd nodded off, a book had found a way down between the couch cushions where it remained hidden for about a week. 

Bucky's new habit wasn't particularly harmful, but it was irritating and Steve couldn't bring himself to make up more rules when there were already enough terms and conditions in place to keep Bucky out of RAFT prison. 

"His new thing is boxes, but it makes even less sense than him hiding notebooks" Steve sighed. 

Scattering and squirrelling away memories so HYDRA couldn't steal them was understandable after what he'd been through, but swapping boxes around all day? Aside from slowly driving him insane, Steve failed to see the underlying purpose. 

"Have you asked him why he does it?" Nat suggested. 

It was an obvious solution to an obvious problem but Bucky was anything but obvious these days. 

"I did ... unfortunately it was a bad day, I hadn't realised ... Whatever the reason, it's a touchy subject so I don't ask."

He hoped Natasha wouldn't ask for specifics or more detail because he didn't want to reenact it again. Words were said, feelings hurt and then in the dead of night, Bucky crept into his bed and that was the end of it ... Well, except for the  boxes it seemed. 

"Does he ever talk about HYDRA? Maybe something from his handlers rubbed off on him" Nat trailed off, rubbing a lock of scarlet hair between her fingers as she thought. 

Steve couldn't recall Bucky saying anything that he could link back to boxes, but perhaps it would come to him later. 

"Maybe he's just exercising his autonomy" she suggested ambiguously. 

Steve raised an eyebrow, prompting further explanation which she then elaborated on. 

"When he worked for Karpov, Pierce and even Zemo, he was a weapon. An object. He went where they told him to go, did what they told him to do ... Putting things in boxes, for whatever reasons could be his way of not being an object anymore." 

It seemed plausible, to Steve's ears at least, but he couldn't help but feel that he was treating Bucky somewhat the same himself. He kept Bucky safe, but he wasn't allowed to come and go as he pleased. If he left the apartment on a whim to explore downtown, he faced a tribunal. He was effectively a prisoner in his own home for most of the day. Even if he wasn't brutally tortured or coerced into killing someone, he was still under the thumb of Ross's 'bail conditions'. 

"Whatever his reasons ... I hope it passes, I can't find any of my stuff where I left it and we really ought to have unpacked everything by now."

"Natasha" Maria Hill poked her head around the door of Tony's office, "Russian secretary on the line here."

Natasha patted Steve reassuringly on the shoulder. 

"You got this Steve."

"Hope you're right Romanov."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowee ... I was scribbling in my notebook for a couple of days, this is only about half of what I wrote but I've decided to split it into two chapters for fear this one was getting a bit too big/busy. Hope you enjoy!!!
> 
> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


	3. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers doesn't like Thai food... or does he?

Steve lingered in the foyer for a while. T'Challa had promised to update him on his research in all things related to the Winter Soldier case and how to undo the brainwashing. Steve reminded himself to be patient, it took every ounce of self control to keep himself from pacing or tapping his foot impatiently. Bucky was the most important thing to him right now, Avenging was still a huge portion of his life, but since Zemo was taken down, things had gone quiet, though it was only a matter of time before another villain crawled out of the woodwork. T'Challa didn't have that luxury though, he wasn't getting any downtime, if anything, his workload had only increased, he had a whole nation to govern as well as playing his role in the UN discussions. His research wasn't his most pressing concern and Steve had no right to rush him when T'Challa was helping Bucky out of his own kindness, not because Steve had hired him to synthesise a cure of some kind.

It wasn't T'Challa who found Steve though, Sam appeared instead.

"You look like you need a drink" he concluded, giving Steve's arm a tug toward the door.

"I can't Sam, I'm waiting for T'Challa then I-"

Sam interrupted, "Something came up, his Highness is occupied for now, sorry Cap, and before you say 'then I need to make sure Bucky hasn't hijacked an ice cream van and laid siege to Dairy Queen', he'll survive a couple hours unsupervised. C'mon, there's time for two war buddies to grab a drink, if you smile I might even treat you to one myself."

"I really can't" Steve protested weakly but Sam had already coerced him halfway down the corridor and showed no sign of stopping.

Sam had a talent for finding quiet bars, and clean ones too, not seedy dives. Even though he hadn't wanted to go, it didn't seem so bad once he stepped inside the rather unremarkable "traditional Irish pub". The authenticity of the bar was questionable at best, but it was cozy, a little on the small side.

After the first icy cool sip Steve felt himself relax, almost despite himself. Perhaps he was finally taking comfort in the fact that he knew he could never get drunk. After Bucky fell, he discovered nothing could even get him tipsy, much less blind-drunk, and ever since the fall, he'd found himself wishing he was utterly inebriated more times than he cared to admit. It was hard for him to criticise Tony for his drinking problem, when the only thing preventing him from using booze as a crutch was his inability to feel the effects of the alcohol in his system ... not that it lasted long enough, his metabolism burned through it too fast.

"Be honest with me Cap" Sam pressed with his usual gentle firmness.

"Just tired Sam" he sighed, staring into his drink.

"I thought once I got him back we could put everything behind us, but I still wake at night with Red Skull's sneering face flashing in front of me. I see Bucky falling, I see people dying, people I could have saved. I see Peggy".

That stung.

Not even a year dead and most of the world appeared to have moved on, probably much like it had moved on after he hit the ice. Yet, he couldn't help but feel that his world was moving differently and he remained stubbornly in place rather than flowing with time.

"She was a hell of a woman I hear," Sam nodded.

"Sharon gave quite a moving eulogy."

"I heard that too."

"I don't want to let him down." Steve admitted.

It was too late for him to help Peggy. It was too late for him to help Peggy seventy years ago when he crashed into the ice and she had to face the Cold War that came after the Second World War. It was a bitter relief that she'd passed on peacefully, but it was no relief at all when Steve missed her wily remarks and dry humour. He missed the way she seemed to keep a clear head when he lost his and always knew the right things to say. Sharon was much like her aunt in ways, but there was only one Peggy and even her niece couldn't compare at the end of the day.

There was only one Bucky too and Steve would be damned if he'd let him slip away as well.

"You're doing the best you can ... and a damn good job."

Steve gave a weak nod, as if to try and wring some truth from Sam's words but he didn't quite believe in them himself. Not yet.

He drained his glass, thanked Sam for his company and made his way home. Good or bad day, he had Bucky, maybe he wasn't doing a perfect job, but there were times when he liked to think they'd made progress and he wouldn't get any further if they gave up now.

He didn't circle the block this time.

 

"Buck? I'm home"

Steve always gave a warning, in case Bucky mistook him for an unwanted intruder. He liked to think if their roles were reversed Bucky would do the same. They were both a little jumpy at times. Steve liked to pretend it was Fury's fault after that time he broke into his house before Buck- before the _Winter Soldier_ shot him, but that paranoia was always there, before Fury, after Fury ... it was a shadow lurking in the corner after witnessing a World War. They both knew too well how easily someone could break in, even though they knew a common burglar didn't stand a chance against an enhanced Super Soldier, there was a mental trauma attached to having your personal space invaded ... or your brain as was the case with Bucky.

"Bucky" Steve called again.

There was no response but he did hear a rustle from the bedroom, followed by the dull 'thunk' of a book landing on cardboard.

_Bloody boxes again._

He saw Bucky through the bedroom door, dark hair fallen forward like a veil concealing his features, though Steve could visualise him clearly in his head. Brows furrowed slightly, deep in concentration, a slight frown tugging the corners of his lips which would be pursed thinly of course, eyes narrowed and slightly distant in concentration. It was the same look he usually had when he was messing with the boxes and totally ignoring Steve.

He was slightly hunched over at the end of the bed, utterly transfixed on whatever trinket he was holding in his hands. Steve was pleased to notice Bucky wearing fresh clothes though, some of Steve's clothes in fact, but what did it matter. Bucky didn't snap out of his trance until Steve was leaning in the door jamb.

"Buck."

He looked up, gaze haunted and distant for a fraction of a second before he was Bucky again. He fiddled idly with the trinket he'd been staring at, which happened to be a trashy old souvenir Natasha had brought back from a trip. It was a dinosaur in a sombrero, ' _a dinosaur for my favourite fossil'_ she'd teased, but Steve had been overwhelmingly grateful for her small gift anyway. That had been quite a while ago, Bucky was still missing then and Steve was chasing several fruitless leads.

"When did we get this?"

"It was a present from Natasha, a few years ago." Steve answered, gently prying the dinosaur from Bucky's hands and putting it on the half-empty shelf behind him.

He slunk down to sit on the bed beside Bucky, lacing the fingers of his left hand through Bucky's right.

 _A good day ... I got this_.

"I didn't know you were so interested in dinosaurs." Steve hummed.

"I'm not" Bucky replied.

"You're interested in dinner though ... right?" Steve smirked, an eyebrow quirking up hopefully.

That pulled a small smirk from Bucky as it almost always did.

Even in a bad mood, Bucky had to eat. Steve remembered a page of the memory books that he'd read, before he’d realised that it was best not to read them at all. It must have been written shortly after he'd gone MIA in Washington. It had read like the scrawlings of a raving madman, a mixture of a diary and hastily written flashbacks. One page was dedicated to writing his name, a mantra over and over _"My name is Bucky ... Bucky ... I am Bucky. Bucky is my name. I'm Bucky"_. Then he wrote snatches of memories of the live-operations he'd endured, the parts before he blacked out from pain. Then in the next paragraph he wrote shorthand notes, where he was, or, if he couldn’t give a street name or a city, he’d note down some of the landmarks and try figure it out later, and then beneath that he’d take an account of his “recovery”. Steve used the term loosely because, although he wasn’t a doctor, Bucky’s early recovery seemed more like torture than healing. 

Years of going in and out of cryogenic stasis had destroyed his digestive system. When Steve came out of the ice, he was slowly brought back into the real world, and even then it had been a painful and patient process, the Serum was very effective of course, Bucky's was just a cocktail of drugs trying to replicate the original, there was no telling what that meant for his recovery back then. Bucky’s handlers hadn’t been as gentle or cautious, they took shortcuts. They’d sustained his vitals through IV drips, it had been years since his body had physically digested food and Bucky’s first memory of his first meal since HYDRA were painful at best.

That was long behind him though. Now that he was able to eat, it was one of the few luxuries he could really indulge in, although Bucky was pretty frugal. Steve wasn’t sure if that was because he’d been conditioned to ration everything from his military days and his time in hiding, or if it was the old pre-War Bucky who was used to only having enough money to buy the bare essentials … Then again, he'd been frivolous back then, going to dances, fairs and conventions when they had barely enough money to get in. Sometimes the best part of the trip was Bucky's inventive techniques to try and bring them back home when they didn't have enough money for a train or the next morning when they finally made it home and they had to find some way to patch up their shoes after walking the entire night, laughing and joking the whole way. 

 

The money worries may have been a thing of the past, but dinner was very much a present issue. 

“What’ll we have?” Bucky asked, standing up to stretch.

His metal arm made a soft metallic whirring sound, Steve was almost used to it now. It was as gentle and comforting as a cats purr where it had previously made him jump. It was strange how an alien sound could become familiar over time.

“I thought we might go out for a change. You’ve been cooped up in here for a while”

Bucky’s response was … unreadable. Steve hated that. He couldn’t tell if Bucky was still figuring out how to emote or if he was intentionally blank. Sometimes he was expressive, other times there was nothing there at all.

“There’s a Thai Fusion place that Nat swears will blow your socks off.”

“Pft, you’ll hate it” Bucky said with a wry smirk.

“Hey I haven’t even tried it.”

“You’re Steve ‘Applepie’ Rogers … Not Steve ‘Thai Fusion’ Rogers” Bucky, quite rightly observed.

“My middle names actually Grant ...  _Buchanan_ ”.

“I hadn’t forgotten either of those, don’t remind me” Bucky groaned.

He’d always disliked the name. _“America’s Worst President”_ , well … after the 2016 election, perhaps that position was shared now. 

“I’m still right though, you don’t like Thai food, you like traditional, plain, carb-laden, all-American grub. We can go to the same old burger bar we usually go to Steve. I don’t want to find out if Super Soldiers can get Super-Heartburn because you think I like Thai food.”

Steve paused to think on that.

 _You think I like Thai food_ …

Did he?

They didn’t have anything as exotic as Thai food, heck, even if they had a Thai restaurant in Brooklyn back then, it was unlikely they could afford to eat there, not to mention the whole “fusion” trend seemed to be a modern culinary invention. But Bucky had been on the run for two years, that was plenty of time to try Thai.

“ _Do_ you like Thai?” Steve asked.

Sometimes it felt like no time at all had passed between them, other times it was painfully obvious he was trying to play catch up, trying to knit their lives back together again, stitching up the hole that had formed in the time between the fall and now.

“I like any food” Bucky scoffed, not quite answering the question, an annoying habit of his. “So let’s grab burgers and you can tell me what’s bugging you.”

 

Just like that, Bucky tugged on a jacket and breezed out the door as if their lives were totally normal and utterly unremarkable. 

Steve allowed Bucky to lead the way. It was a memory exercise these days, Buck trying to find his way, not to mention he spent so long cooped up indoors, bored out of his skull, Steve allowed him to take his time and watch the city when they went on outings. He was always on edge of course, scanning the crowd for anyone giving him a second glance in case they were HYDRA, it was a hard habit to shake off but the fresh air seemed good for him. 

He paused a couple of times along the way, Steve presumed he was making sure he was going the right way, though he'd never gone wrong before. As patchy as his memory was, he'd never had any problems navigating. 

"So you gonna tell me what's on your mind Applepie?" he asked, lighting up a smoke as they walked before they'd reach the restaurant. 

"Please tell me you don't plan on making the nickname stick."

"Oh I have every intention of it. You'll have to come up with something really good to try stop me." he took a drag, lacing the fingers on his other hand through Steve's. "That, or tell me what's bugging you. You've been losin' sleep at night, and don't tell me it's because I look pretty when I sleep and you can't help but watch." 

At least HYDRA hadn't broken that part of him. He could still take the anxiety and tension out of the air before a serious discussion. If he'd been around during the whole Accords thing, he'd surely have diffused all the tension in the room so they could actually come to a reasonable agreement instead of the mess they'd landed themselves in. 

"How'd you know?" Steve asked, although the dark circles under his eyes were evidence enough and Bucky's withering gaze dismissed the need to answer the question properly. 

"Spit it out punk, or I'll have to wrestle it outta ya like when we were kids." 

Steve laughed at that, "That might have worked when I was a puny kid but we're pretty evenly matched now Buchanan."

"Alright, alright, enough of the nicknames ... just" Bucky sighed, "Tell me what's on your mind, God knows it's easier to pick your brain than mine."

He stubbed out his cigarette and turned the corner into the restaurant, finding a nice quiet booth in the corner, near the back exit of course, where else would a paranoid ex-Assassin choose to sit other than the table near a quick exit. 

"I'm sure you could guess but- ... I'm worried about you buddy" Steve admitted, unfortunately that was when the waitress interrupted, not that that came as a huge surprise, she was just doing her job. 

There was no need for them to "have a look at the menu", they were regulars, Bucky placed both their orders, taking some pride in being able to recite it perfectly.

"What are you worried about? I take my pills, I go to my appointments, I don't leave the house and no one comes in, cept for you and sometimes Nat or Sam but they always text or call first." 

"That's the problem"

Bucky gave a bewildered look. 

"You aren't a house cat Buck, and I know you get frustrated being locked in and always worrying about your Winter Soldier programming. I mean, you're fine now but last time y-"

"Steve don't." 

He was cold. Ice. It was terrifying how quickly his warmth could fade. Just like how he snapped into Winter Soldier mode, he could switch off and put a gulf between them again, only this time he was fully aware and in control. He'd never been defensive before, yet somehow, Steve suspected HYDRA hadn't implanted that in him, it was a wall he'd build around himself. 

"I know some days I get bad ... I lose my temper, lose my patience, but we both know this is all we can do. We just gotta wait until T'Challa and Tony figure this out." 

"How do I figure _you_ out?" Steve asked seriously. 

The silent tension would have hung in the air indefinitely, if the waitress returning with their burgers hadn't proved a fortunate intrusion. 

"Same way I do ... Keep trying different ways to find something that puts all the jumbled pieces together."

"Is that what the boxes are all about?"

Finally. There it was. 

"In a way."

"And is it working?" 

Bucky shrugged, "I'm not quite sure."

The wall of ice seemed to melt away. Bucky brushed his knee against Steve's under the table. 

"Eat." he ordered warmly, taking a large bite out of his burger, nudging Steve to do the same. 

"Can I help? Next time you do the thing with the boxes I mean. Maybe we could try together." 

Steve remember what Nat had said. Maybe the boxes were Bucky's way of being autonomous, his way of "figuring himself out", and maybe it was best for Steve to stay out, for fear he'd just be another one of Bucky's handlers rather than his partner, his friend. Bucky had the choice now. Everything was a choice. What he wore, what he ate, what he did, when he went to bed, where they went when Steve took him out around the town. Any choice Steve could afford to give Bucky, he did, even within the tight constrictions of their agreements with General Ross, T'Challa and Tony. If boxes were Bucky's choice, Steve respected it and he was willing to bear with the rules and terms Bucky invented ... even if being unable to unpack their stuff was significantly bothersome. At the same time ... he wanted to be involved, he wanted to understand and if Bucky couldn't explain it, maybe it would make sense if they did it together. They were in this together,  _weren't they?_

Bucky swallowed and replied.

"No." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is a Bucky POV btw! Hope you enjoyed the back-to-back Steve-Session!!!
> 
> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


	4. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes for a check-up and Steve is nervous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soooo sorry for my prolonged absence, I was moving out of my dorm AND I happened to come down with a terrible flu which I still haven't quite shook off! I really tried to spoil you with this chapter though so I hid a couple of amusing easter-eggs in there (I thought they were amusing anyway). I put little stars after the references, lemme know if you "Understood that reference" (see, thats from Avengers Assemble!), the explanations are in the end notes. Good luck see if you can get all 5!

Dreamless sleep was the best kind of sleep, but also sometimes the worst. Really, any kind of sleep was a struggle for Bucky, though Steve was no stranger to restlessness either. 

Dreamless sleep reminded Bucky of cryo, but sometimes dreamful sleep turned into nightmarish sleep and Bucky couldn't tell which was worse ... Reliving the sensation of slipping into cryo, or seeing his victims final moments flash through his skull in too-perfect clarity. Remembering being "Bucky" was great, but they weren't his only memories, the horrible ones were often clearer, fresher and sharper.  

Tonight he couldn't sleep, but Steve was restful at least, on his side, naked as his birthday, an arm slung over Bucky's bare waist. 

It had been a good day. A really good day. 

Bucky hurriedly jotted it down after dinner, chucked his notebook in the designated box before cuddling up with Steve and perhaps getting a little too carried away. 

_Awh to hell with it! We're old and in love._

In those intimate moments, laced together body and soul, Bucky could forget the hundreds of intimate moments he'd stolen from people. Hundreds of lives and romances, all cut short. 

Eventually he remembered them, sometimes in a bunch or other times they trickled in, one terrible murder after another. Steve only helped him forget things for a few moments at a time but boy were they good moments. Now he remembered their discussion before dinner, replaying things in his head. 

_"You aren't a house cat Buck and I know you get frustrated being locked in and always worrying about your Winter Soldier programming. I mean you're fine now but last time you-"_

Bucky wondered what Steve was about to say then. He'd interrupted, he'd flinched and retreated and bringing it up again and sometimes Bucky wished he could stop himself or perhaps that Steve would persist. 

What if they'd missed something important?

What if they'd lost more questions and answers? 

_"last time you-"_

_... became the Winter Soldier?_

_... tried to kill someone?_

_... lost your temper and said something hurtful?_

Then what? 

What point was Steve building up to? They both wanted him to be "cured" already. That wasn't new, they just didn't quite agree on the method .

Bucky was ready for any and every procedure Tony and T'Challa threw at him. The harder the better, he deserved to suffer for this cure after all the pain he'd inflicted. Steve seemed to think he'd already paid the ultimate price but Steve didn't see the brutality the Winter Soldier inflicted.

He didn't know, the worst part about brainwashing wasn't necessarily someone pulling your brain out and playing with it. No, there was a strange level of torture reserved for the piece they left intact. 

Something about being a prisoner inside your own head, witnessing your finger pull a trigger, or your fist delivering the fatal blow, and having no power at all to stop it. 

That was the worst part. 

That was why he needed painful treatments and punishments. A greater man would have been able to stop all the killing. Bucky couldn't even control his own tongue. No wonder HYDRA had had their way with him so easily all these years. 

Just as he was finally slipping away, the fatigue unwillingly giving way to something that somewhat resembled sleep ... the alarm went off. 

Steve, despite getting a near full compliment of sleep, groaned and slapped the clock off the bedside table. It crashed to the floor and continued to wail loudly to spite him. He groaned again and rolled over, blindly pawing the floor till he found the clock and switched it off. 

He rolled back onto his back and draped his forearms over his face, trying to block out the light that trickled through the blinds which evidently did little to stave off the sun. 

Bucky hated early starts and interrupted lie-ins but today was different. 

Firstly, he hadn't really slept to being with so it wasn't as if his sleep was being interrupted.

Secondly, today was never going to be a lazy lie-in day.

"Get up" he mumbled, poking Steve's side. 

Steve was usually very spry, but since settling down, he'd indulged himself in some PJ-days. It only took seventy years for him to relax his military training enough to chill in bed or hit the snooze button every once in a while. Steve was particularly reluctant to move today and it wasn't until Bucky got up to make coffee that Steve finally shifted out of bed. 

When he finally padded into the kitchen, Bucky already had bacon and eggs frying, toast "toasting" (as there were no longer notebooks in the toaster), and a glass of juice waiting on the table. 

"Trying to butter me up already Barnes?" Steve teased, sliding into his chair. 

"Pretty much. Sunny side up, just how you like 'em."

Bucky plated up the eggs and bacon, taking pleasure in the way Steve's face lit up as if he'd just bagged himself a Balmain jacket or some really good vinyls of songs he hadn't heard since the 40s. Steve was a sucker for sentimental old stuff like that, well the vinyls at least, he didn't care quite so much about modern fashion but Bucky liked it when he dressed up nice and was gradually updating his wardrobe so he didn't look quite so much like an uncle or grandad. Steve wasn't into flip-flops or harem pants but there were plenty of other nice trends he could more than pull off. 

"You're not having any?" Steve asked, chewing almost guiltily on a strip of bacon. 

"Don't play dumb, you know what today is."

Steve nodded glumly and swallowed. Bucky's memory was patchy but he never missed appointments because he wrote things down. Steve may have been new to the memory game but Bucky was a veteran player on hard mode. 

Bucky  _would_ have liked to join him for breakfast of course, he was no Captain America but he was no stranger to the Super Soldier diet, not to mention Steve looked a little sad having his wonderful breakfast solo. 

"You know we could always reschedule or ..."

"Steve", Bucky replied flatly, "It'll only take a couple of hours, and it has to be done anyway."

He sometimes thought he had the easy end of the bargain. Steve seemed to suffer more in appointments than him even though he wasn't patient zero. 

Bucky reached across the table to squeeze his hand. 

"It could be good news this time."

"It couldn't exactly get much worse."

Steve's face flashed. Regret ... Embarrassment ... Fear? 

He was afraid he'd offend Bucky which ... was almost more offensive than what he'd said if Bucky were to be quite honest. He didn't want Steve to censor himself, he needed him to speak his mind, just like old times right? Isn't that what they both wanted?

"When'd you become such a negative Nancy? I could still be a brainwashed killer Russian now I'm a ... a"

_What am I?_

"A fantastic ... boyfriend." 

Steve hesitated shyly at the suggestion, nervously awaiting Bucky's response. 

"Yeah, that could work. now cmon, finish your eggs, lets go."

That seemed to cheer Steve up a bunch. 

The walk through the park toward Stark Tower was pretty quiet, but their walks often were quiet. Usually it was the comfortable kind of silence, sometimes less comfortable. Tony's lab had enough noises and distractions anyway, the hum of early morning traffic that just about filtered through the leafy shrubs encircling the park provided an ambient background noise for the birds unleashing a chorus of tweets and whistles. 

Bucky walked on Steve's left, so Steve could hold his right hand. He done this intentionally, not that Steve noticed. It wasn't because there was something inherently wrong with the left hand, all things considered, Steve had grown quite comfortable with the cybernetic arm. There was something the right arm had that the left would never possess regardless of Tony's enhancements and upgrades. 

A pulse. 

Bucky was more intuitive than most gave him credit for, he knew Steve drew comfort in the steady drum of a pulse against his wrist, even if Steve didn't notice it himself. 

Bucky noticed things though. Lots of things, like how Steve started to fidget with his free hand as Stark Tower loomed into sight. It grew even worse the closer they got. Bucky started humming in a bid to distract him. 

" _It's Been a Long, Long Time huh_ " Steve noticed.

"The song never went into specifics but ... seventy years is quite a stretch huh." Bucky joked, nudging Steve with his elbow and singing a couple of bars. 

 _"Haven't felt like this, my dear_  
_Since I can't remember when_  
_It's been a long, long time "_

It didn't do much to stop the fidgeting, but Steve did manage to smile a bit. He was practically vibrating with nerves by the time they got inside Stark Tower. 

"Stevie, it'll be fine" Bucky assured him for possibly the millionth time, at least that's what it felt like. 

He paced the elevator as it zoomed up to the med-lab where T'Challa and Tony would be waiting. Bucky wondered if it was because of him, or whether he didn't like elevators ever since that brawl with Rumlow... Bucky couldn't help but get excited when Steve told him about that particular fight, he'd have loved to see Rumlow getting knocked on his ass. 

Finally the doors slid apart to reveal Tony's lab and the man himself hunched over  _something_ ... Bucky couldn't tell what Stark was working on but it always fascinated him. If they weren't all hanging on tender hooks, Bucky would have pulled up a chair and perched behind Tony just to watch him fidget with science-y stuff all day. They weren't at that stage of their relationship yet, for now, Bucky just let Tony poke around his brain and hope that something worked. 

Steve wasn't a big fan of that ... He liked T'Challa's approach. Run lots of small tests and samples, wait till they see some small results and then push further. It was slow, steady and cautious, but neither Tony nor Bucky had that kind of patience. Steve wasn't usually quite so patient either, but he drew the line when it came to Tony's more extreme tests. 

"Where's His Highness?" Steve asked immediately, noting the absence of the Wakandan monarch. 

Tony jerked up from his work, knocking over a, fortunately empty, coffee cup. 

"Oh wow, morning already" Tony mused, his eyes circled black. 

It seemed like Bucky wasn't he only one who didn't catch a good nights sleep. 

"I knew this was a bad idea, Tony you look a mess. We'll come back another day, you're in no state to examine him." Steve insisted, already turning for the elevator. 

Bucky grabbed Steve by the hand and pulled him back around. 

"I didn't skip breakfast for nothing. How hard can a couple of tests be anyway? It's just routine." Bucky dropped Steve's hand and walked over to the examination chair and plopped down. 

"Tell you what, if you don't wanna hang around and watch, why don't you head over to that diner we like, see if they'll do a stack of pancakes to go, by the time you get back Tony'll be done." 

"Stop trying to get rid of me Bucky."

Steve frowned at that and pulled up a plastic chair to sit beside Bucky. 

Tony set about cleaning himself up ever so slightly and clearing off a workspace so he could find his things, granting Steve some form of privacy in his own subtle way. Steve's voice dropped low, heavy with sentiment. 

"I don't expect you to admit you need me ... in fact, I  _know_ you well enough to know better than that ... so I'm just going to be here anyway in case you do."

Bucky gave Steve's hand a gentle squeeze. Damn he was too sweet sometimes, though Bucky held back on the affections, for Tony's sake mostly. He was still going through a lot and Pepper was still out of the picture. Bucky didn't want to rub salt in the wound, from what Steve had told him, Pepper was something really special, he hoped they'd figure things out.

 

Steve fished out his phone, presumably to text T'Challa, of the two geniuses, T'Challa was the more responsible one and Steve would be damned if he'd allow Tony and Bucky to play science with his brain unsupervised. Usually Bucky would complain about Steve being too meddlesome but, today was a good day. He couldn't screw it up this time. He wouldn't allow himself to screw it up. 

Just as Tony finished digging out his tablet and barking a few orders at FRIDAY, Steve's phone bleeped. 

"T'Challa's on his way." Steve said with tremendous relief. 

"Yeah well tell him he better run like he did in Romania because I'm hungry and if he holds up these tests for hours it'll be more than my head he has to worry about" Bucky replied.  

"If you wreck my lab on a hangry rampage we won't have to worry about you at all, only the funeral costs. Sit still" Tony said, preparing a bunch of tiny electrode patches to stick onto Bucky and hook up to machines to read out results. 

Bucky tugged off his shirt to allow Tony to stick the appropriate heart-monitoring stickers in place, a couple on his temples, his right arm, by the time he was finished, Bucky felt like a puppet with a bunch of electric strings tethering him to a machine. 

"We're getting pancakes after this right?" Bucky asked, double checking that that plan was still on the cards.

"Of course."

"Mr Barnes, how are you feeling?" T'Challa smiled, a humble smile considering he was a King and a genius and a legendary super hero ... 

"Hungry and a little sleepy." he answered. 

T'Challa tapped his own tablet, drawing up records from previous sessions with Bucky and the parts of his old files that Natasha had translated into English. 

"Have you been taking your pills?" 

"Most of the time."

"Which one's haven't you been taking?"

"The headache ones, they make my head fuzzy."

"Have you been getting headaches?"

_Aside from the one you're giving me right now ..._

"Not any bad ones." Bucky half-lied, T'Challa wasn't convinced ... Bucky blamed the look on Steve's face of course.

The way his eyebrows tugged in slightly was a dead give away that he was lying and Steve was concerned. 

"Okay okay, there was a couple so then I took the pills and they went away, it's no big deal."

"The pills aren't just to prevent headaches, you need to take them all consistently so that your progress is consistent, so that you can get better."

Bucky sighed. This was where the frustration of appointment's began to set in. T'Challa and Tony didn't listen, surely Bucky knew his own brain better than anyone else, even if he hadn't always had control over it. He knew how it  _felt_ inside his brain and no one else could ever even imagine it. 

"Fine, I'll take them consistently till the next session so you can get your results, can we just get on with the tests now?"

"Buck!" Steve chastised, all formalities with the King as usual. 

"Alright then lets not keep the hungry Soldier waiting." Tony said, much to Bucky's relief. 

The monitor flicked on, numbers and graph-like-lines wiggled on the screen, measuring pulse and brainwaves and ... Well Bucky didn't have a clue, but good bad or indifferent, something was happening. This was the easy part. A memory test. 

_"What day is it?"_

_Wednesday, a good day for Pancakes_

_"Who is President"_

_Ppft you mean that clow-_

_"Bucky just answer the question"_

The easy questions were easy. The same thing every visit. 

Then they got harder. Bucky forgot things he was supposed to remember, or he got the details wrong. 

Steve's face confirmed whenever Bucky made a mistake.  _God he's too easy to read sometimes ... why is it when I want to read him, when I need to understand him, I can't..._

But Steve's face never gave away the correct answers ... only that Bucky had messed them up, somehow, somewhere ... someone or something was wrong. 

_I remember the train ... we were going through Italy at night to stop the Red Skull..._

_No ... that's not it. But ... I was on the train, I fell from the train. What am I getting wrong? Maybe it wasn't a train ... A truck? No ... Plane? Nah that's silly. Dammit!_

  

After the frustrations of that test came the usual MRI scan. Unlike a regular MRI though ... Bucky had to be shackled into the damn tube ... this was where they ran their most dangerous test and if he wasn't bolted down to the table and something went wrong ... The whole entire machine wouldn't be near enough to contain him. 

It whirred to life and Bucky slid deeper into the tube, Steve looked miserable watching the whole time but Bucky tried to ease his discomfort by filling the room with pointless shower-thoughts.

"And another thing, are you  _sure_ Starbuck's wasn't named in my honour?"

He clenched his teeth as the machine began it's scan. MRI machines hated metal, or at the very least, the two had a strong dislike for one another. Stark had done his best to alleviate the pain by making a ... fancy high-tech blanket to cover the metal arm, something to counter the magnetic force in the MRI or something so it didn't try to fry his arm. The blanket however didn't do much to protect the synthetic implants in Bucky's shoulder, back and collar. It felt like his bones were on fire, it felt like they were being wrenched apart. He swallowed down the pain, as best he could, white noise screeching in his ears, but Steve's voice punched through the pain, just barely.

"I'm positive. Tell you what, I'll retire from the Super Soldier business and we'll set up a Star _Buckys_ if it pleases you."

Bucky couldn't respond. Opening his mouth might unleash a pained growl, he didn't want Steve to worry. He laughed inside his own head though. 

_Our own coffee shop ... that'd be a hoot._

Finally the machine wound down, the droning buzz subsided and the burning, buzzing sensation in his bones melted away, slowly. He didn't allow himself to relax until he was safely unshackled from the machine and given the liberty of sitting in an armchair instead. Steve seemed just as relieved too, gladly knitting their fingers together. 

"Alright Thelma and Louise, go grab something to eat, we'll have a look at these results. Come back in say ... twenty minutes?" Tony instructed. 

Bucky didn't have to be told twice of course, his stomach was about ready to eat itself, the diner couldn't have come sooner, or rather, they couldn't have arrived at the diner sooner. It was within walking distance, but Bucky was just about ready to faint, or at least, thats what he told Steve so that they could grab a taxi to cut the travel time in half. 

Seven pancake stacks later and Steve looked at Bucky from across the table, working his way through the eighth. 

"Keep this up and we'll need a bigger apartment." Steve joked, twirling the straw in his empty milkshake glass. 

"You're one to talk, you had three waffles and an ice cream  _and_ you aren't the one who skipped breakfast." 

Steve sniggered, even though the thought of the results of Tony and T'Challa's check-up tests were looming in the background like a buzzing swarm. For a moment he relaxed, just a moment. 

"There'll just be more of me to love, you can live with that Rogers." 

Steve nudged Bucky's leg under the table playfully. 

"Yeah, I could." 

Steve's phone buzzing shattered the moment.

A message from Tony. 

_Results are in, get your ass back here._

Steve went pale. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading and being patient with me, even though I'm still coughing like crazy. I feel better just seeing views and comments and kudos on my work. Your support means so much! 
> 
> Did you figure out my references?  
> 1\. Steve likes sunny side up eggs. This happened in the Assault on Pleasant Hill comics.  
> 2\. The Balmain Jacket is an homage to the "Life of Bucky Barnes" art-stories by Petite-Madame.  
> 3\. Flip-flops are a reference to Yawpatski's Bucky and Fubar story, there is a panel about Bucky and Steve failing at walking in flip flops!  
> 4\. Bucky becomes Captain America in the comics (and who knows maybe in the Infinity Wars movies ...)  
> 5\. Been a Long Long Time, this song was played in the background of the First Avenger, checkit out and weep!!!
> 
>  
> 
> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


	5. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's tests return some unexpected results and Steve faces a test of his own ...

Steve was ready to bolt out the door, he was halfway out of the booth they were sitting in before he noticed Bucky hadn't even moved a fraction. 

"They can wait, the results aren't going anywhere but the rest of this pancake is going inside me." he insisted. 

"Buck."

"Steve" he retorted with mock-seriousness. "Wait."

He knew he'd never really been very patient. It was almost funny when he thought about it, the Captain America flashed around in all the propaganda clips and posters was a beacon of virtue, the American Ideal. Did everyone think he was patient? He had other virtues, he knew he was polite, he knew right from wrong, but damn he hated waiting. Did people think Bucky was patient? Did people even think about things like that or were they too preoccupied trying to figure out if he was a villain or a victim because of his history? 

Bucky was always the patient one. That's one of the reasons why he'd been a great sniper back during the war. He could sit still, stake a place out ... Steve just ran straight in, but he never had to look over his shoulder, Bucky always covered him. It wasn't until the train that he realised what it felt like not to have someone at your back. It was like missing a limb. 

Speaking of missing limbs ... Steve slid back into the booth, let his hand rest on Bucky's left hand. It was cold and weird and metal but ... it wasn't so bad once you got used to it. 

"Sorry Buck- I ... I just want to get these results over with so we can see our options."

Bucky ate another forkful of pancake, slowly and thoughtfully. 

"You know why I want you to wait?" 

Steve shook his head. He gave up trying to figure out Bucky's MO, he just tried to adjust to this new life they had together. It was unpredictable but it was theirs. 

"You keep looking ahead. You're already ten steps ahead. In your head, you've already figured out what you're going to say and do if it's bad news and, maybe you've thought about what you'll do if it's good news for a change, but what you're missing is  _this_."

Bucky's metal thumb brushed over Steve's palm. Gently, so gently. 

"While you're sitting there worrying about the future, I'm enjoying right now because ... Sometimes I can't remember the past, I don't know if I'll ever be totally better or if HYDRA's fucked me up for good, but what I know is  _right now_. This is the easy part Steve, so let me enjoy it. Enjoy it  _with_ me."

Steve couldn't argue that, so he didn't. Besides, Bucky only had half a pancake left and it really wouldn't take him that long to get through it. He tried no to fidget, he tried not to think about the future but ... it worked for Bucky, it didn't work for him. Maybe that was why they called him "The Man Out of Time"? 

 

 

Tony and T'Challa were both sitting down around a table. Their expressions were neither good nor bad, they were worryingly neutral, the kind of neutral expression that was carefully constructed. It was the sort of face you saw on an officer when he knocked on your door to tell you the bad news but he didn't want to look like he was about to tell you bad news... 

"Well, how bad is it?" Bucky asked. 

He was trying to sound cavalier but he squeezed his hand a little tighter. Steve knew Bucky didn't want to hear it anymore than he did, Bucky wanted to be back at that diner eating another stack of pancakes, enjoying that moment and not experiencing this one. 

"A cure is beyond the capabilities of Mr Starks technology." T'Challa answered. 

"So I just keep taking my pills and that's it?" 

He didn't sound particularly pleased or disappointed. Steve knew that Bucky hated all the pills but, it was a sacrifice that he made with minimal complaints. He hadn't anticipated it would be a long-term or even permanent arrangement but ... maybe it was. 

"That is one option, but I have another idea." 

Bucky nodded, Steve watched him, a flicker of hope there perhaps? T'Challa continued, a smile spreading across his face, pride pouring through him. 

"My sister Shuri, she is the most intelligent person in Wakanda, in the world-"

"That's debatable" Tony interrupted. 

"Could you forget your ego for maybe ten minutes Tony, this is important." 

Steve didn't often chastise Tony, but today wasn't the day for Tony's witticisms. 

"She can achieve incredible things. I don't know how long it would take, but you would be most welcome in Wakanda if you wanted to take the journey. I'll let you take some time to think about it. Now, if you gentlemen don't mind, I'm afraid I must excuse myself, I still have UN meetings to attend. It takes quite a lot of negotiation to keep you out of prison Mr Barnes." 

"Thanks T'Challa." Bucky sighed. 

He was grateful, Steve could see that, but he was tired. Weren't they all? It had been relentless testing and experimenting and it was getting them nowhere. 

Tony glanced over his shoulder as T'Challa left before he got up and sauntered over to one of his half-assembled (or half-disassembled, it was hard to tell) projects. 

"For what it's worth ... I don't think you should give up just yet." Tony said, he kept his gaze down and a smug smirk on his face.

It was hard for him to act too sentimental but Steve could tell he was trying to cover it up. His stubbornness knew no bounds and even though he was setting some grudges aside, he wasn't ready to be best friends either. 

"I've read some of Shuri's projects, she's good and Wakanda is basically Heaven on Earth I've heard so ... you should go ... Make a holiday out of it. The world won't end while you're gone." 

Bucky kept his gaze locked on the floor. It was hard for him to make eye contact at all with Tony. Whether he remembered every detail or not, Bucky was still all tied up about his part in Howard and Maria's deaths. Steve had told him it wasn't his fault, he wasn't in control, it was HYDRA that did it ... it never sank in. Steve suspected there was still a part of Tony that saw Bucky as the guy that killed his parents, maybe all of him, but somehow he managed to put it aside long enough to try help him. The Avengers were over and Steve's relationship with Tony was still in shambles but ... this truce was a tentative step toward a recovery. It was all down to T'Challa of course, without him, they wouldn't all have  come to the table to negotiate anything to begin with. 

That didn't make things any less awkward though. 

 

Bucky was quiet and contemplative during the walk home. Steve couldn't even begin to guess what sort of maelstrom his mind was. He'd known Howard Stark, the intrepid inventor, a hero of his. Then he'd woken up in this nightmare future with his brain all scrambled and almost a century of technological advancement and ... Tony Stark had given up... 

Tony wasn't his father, he was as tenacious and genius of course and he wasn't a quitter either. It was a bit of a blow to hear that a Stark couldn't solve this particular problem. As much as he wanted to look forward to what Shuri could do, Steve's heart had sunk a little. He'd thought Tony and Bucky working through all this might have brought about some kind of closure for them both. 

Bucky shirked off his shoes by the door and shuffled into the bedroom. There was a calamitous crashing noise, Steve recognised it as the sound of a box being up-ended and things thudding onto the bedroom floor. 

The ritual began, same as usual and he was still none the wiser about what it all meant. He'd usually carry on around the apartment, trying to unpack something somewhere else, though the kitchen boxes were all put away, most of the sitting room was finished so there was little left for him to do. The place was clean so he couldn't do that either and even if he had a million other chores to do, his mind wasn't in that space. He wanted to know what to do with Bucky. 

"Buck." 

He was sitting cross-legged on the bed as usual, turning over a book in his hands. 

"Can I help you with this?" 

He shook his head. 

"Can I watch at least?"

As if that would help him decipher what this process meant. 

"No."

"Can we talk about it at least? Or ... Shuri. We should probably decide what we're going to do-"

"No Steve."

He slammed the book down onto the bed. Steve didn't have super-sensitive hearing but he could hear the mattress springs groan beneath the duvet.

"I need to do this"

Slowly he drew the book back into his lap and turned it over again. 

"Only I can do this ... I'll think about the tests later." 

 

Later didn't come but Steve didn't want to pick a fight he knew he couldn't win. He didn't want to fight with Bucky in general. It took most of the rest of the day for Bucky to soften up again. He whispered a soft apology against Steve's neck in bed before drifting off to sleep almost immediately. 

If nothing else, Steve was relieved Bucky could sleep these days. Sometimes after undergoing tests in Tony's, Bucky could get worse, mostly headaches, once he'd had a seizure and dropped like a brick in the kitchen. Steve had almost had a heart attack when that happened. 

"Don't worry about Tony or Shuri or any of it Buck ... We'll get through this." Steve whispered, maybe on some subconscious level it would comfort him. 

"I'm with you till the end of the line pal." 

 

It was pitch dark when Steve awoke. Awoke didn't even feel like the right word... He didn't even feel awake. It happened so quickly his brain couldn't keep up and it didn't feel real. It had to be a dream. A nightmare. 

It wasn't. 

The streetlights down below reflected up through the window just enough to catch the silvery glint of his arm and made the whites of his eyes glow. His pupils were fully dilated and looked down at Steve as if he wasn't even there. 

Steve gasped for breath but the metal hand around his neck was crushing his windpipe and Bucky had him pinned on his back into the mattress. 

He kicked, he flailed, he cringed at how horribly uncoordinated he was in his half-dazed state until his hands finally found purchase around a metal forearm and he pushed. 

Try as he might, he couldn't wrench Bucky's arm from his throat and darkness began to creep into his peripheral vision. 

"Bucky- It's me." he croaked, his voice barely a hoarse squeak.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


	6. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve faces a difficult decision, or does he?

"Bucky- Buck" he coughed, voice growing weaker but Bucky wasn't there. 

Not really. This person wore his face but ... it wasn't him. It was the Winter Soldier.  _That_ Winter Soldier. 

This man didn't see his sort-of-boyfriend (because they hadn't made it official but it was totally a thing, definitely). This man saw a target. A mission. 

_You're. My. Mission._

Bucky was Steve's mission. He had been back in the 40s when he'd gotten his stupid ass captured by HYDRA in the first place and since he'd come back as the Winter Soldier, he'd been Steve's mission all over again. 

He'd be damned if he'd mess up a mission a third time. 

The hardest part of fighting the Winter Soldier was that he knew Bucky was in there somewhere. 

Steve let go of Bucky's metal arm, he had one straight shot at this, his head swimming already and his vision blurred, if he didn't knock him back long enough to steady himself, the Winter Soldier would definitely kill him. He punched blindly, throwing all his waning strength into a right hook to the ribs. It connected with a loud crack that made him wince, he hoped it landed in that spot right between the ribs that would knock the air right out of Bucky- No ... It wasn't Bucky, this was the Winter Soldier.

_It's different. He's different._

He didn't have time to battle with his conscience. The Winter Soldier reeled back, a brief opening. Steve sucked in a breath so loud and ragged it surprised even him. His whole body felt as if it was locked in a spasm but he fought through it. It would take more than one punch to put the Winter Soldier down. 

"BUCK!" 

Steve didn't have time to plead for Bucky to come back, to lock the Winter Soldier away again, to give them a chance to fix this. He scrambled off the bed, remembering that Bucky still slept with a knife under his pillow most nights.  _Is it still there? Is he armed? Does the Winter Soldier know it's there? How does that even work?_ A stabbing would have been too quick, he wouldn't have been able to punch his way out of that, the Soldier would have gone straight for the heart or the jugular. There was no waking up after that. Whether by choice or by virtue of not remembering the knife, Steve had dodged a bullet ... or rather a stab wound. 

When the Soldier jumped forward, Steve was ready for him, or at least, as ready as he could be all things considered. He braced his knees and locked onto the shadow that lunged forward, grappling and scrapping. Steve had seen the Winter Soldier in action, he could range from being cold, clinical and calculated in his movements, or feral as a caged cat, lashing out blindly. Right now he was feral. 

"Buck, I know you're in there. Come back to me." Steve pleaded.

The Soldier returned a silent vacant stare, jerking a knee up, smashing hard into Steve's ribs. 

Steve lurched to the side when the blow connected but threw his weight into it, if he was going down, he'd take the Soldier down with him, kicking and punching if necessary. Grunting through the pain, he pushed himself forward as he fell, the Soldier staggered back and smashed into the bookshelf, knocking the meagre portion of their unpacked books off and crushing three of the shelves to pieces in the process. Steve couldn't tell in the darkened room, but he was almost certain there would be a sizeable dent in the plasterboard wall behind it too. 

Steve heard a snap, a portion of the shelf being fashioned into a makeshift stake. The Winter Soldier was a resourceful bastard that's for sure. Steve rolled to the side, a sharpened piece of the shelf whooshed past, narrowly missing his head, it grazed down his shoulder and chest. He punched, couldn't see what he punched, it was too dark and he was so disoriented. The Soldier threw himself forward again, Steve deflected a blow and the wooden stake clattered to the floor somewhere behind him.  _Disarmed, for now but I need to put him down quick ..._

The Soldier had him by the throat again, Steve scratched at the metal arm, then went for the face- missed and caught Buc- The Soldier by the collar. A ragged gasp was the only sound the Soldier made during the entire scuffle. His metal arm yanked Steve violently toward him before launching him backwards, knocking straight through the wall that separated the bedroom from the open-plan kitchen-living room. 

Steve coughed blinked dust out of his eyes, inching backwards, his hands fumbled around to find something,  _anything_ to grab onto to steady himself. He found a chair and listened- Over his raspy breaths he heard the heavy tread of the Winter Soldier closing in. He grabbed the oak dining chair and swung. It smashed against the Soldier but done little to slow his approach. It bought Steve a second though, that was all he needed. 

"Buck I don't want to hurt you." 

He saw the glint of something sharp and silver- The Winter Soldier hadn't forgotten that knife after all. 

He stepped back, one step- two step- 

The knife slashed through the air, silver vanished, it plunged deep into his arm and burned with every inch. 

He felt something cold and solid against his heel. 

It took three solid whacks before the Winter Soldier finally fell slack onto the floor, combat knife skittering under the table. Steve slumped down and dropped his shield to the side, sweat running in rivulets down his back. 

He pulled Bucky's head into his lap. He'd have a monstrous headache when he woke up but no permanent damage ... hopefully. 

He sat there a while, he couldn't tell quite how long, he was too exhausted to move but knew he had to do something. 

 

His first goal was dragging Bucky back into bed. A trickier task than one would suspect. Bucky was a big guy, his arm was also heavy and when he was knocked out cold he was entirely dead weight which made it all the more challenging to drag him back into the bedroom. 

Steve winced with the first couple of steps, acutely aware of the dripping noise that was without a doubt his own blood, dripping down his arm. He felt warm sticky beads of blood dripping onto his foot and the floor around him. When Bucky was finally on the bed, Steve set about securing him to it. He hadn't realised how wise an investment a spare bike chain for his motorcycle was, now he thanked his lucky stars for the two-for-one sale as he dug through the kitchen junk drawer until he found the chain and padlock. 

He hated himself for doing it, and part of him knew that it would take much more than a chain, a lock and their metal headboard of questionable strength to hold the Winter Soldier if he was still "active" when Bucky woke up. 

He glanced at the alarm clock by the bed, it flashed 4:22. 

 

He shuffled into the kitchen, switched on the small light over the stove and began to survey the chaos. The floor was smeared with blood and dust, splintered wood and chunks of the wall. He didn't know where to begin but he knew if he didn't start to tidy up he'd start replaying things in his head, he'd start thinking about what was happening to Bucky and what he'd have to do next- He didn't know where to begin, cleaning up the mess was easier to process. 

First were the chunks of plasterboard and the shattered remains of the broken chair. They were all scooped up into a bin bag and left by the door. He found the bloody combat knife under the table and put it in the sink. The dust and blood took longer than he'd have liked to sweep and mop. By then it was beginning to get a bit brighter, morning sun tentatively creeping in. He could see the chaos a little better as it got brighter out ... A gaping hole in the wall, broken cupboard doors, blood on the wall and even the kitchen tiles, he wasn't sure how it had gotten there.   
The bedroom wasn't much better, said hole in the wall, right beside a ruined book shelf and, as Steve had suspected, a sizeable dent in the wall behind it which would need to be repaired as well. 

Bucky was still out cold though, Steve decided he ought to try clean himself up since he'd gotten as much of the apartment tidy as he could manage. 

It took him a couple of minutes to prepare himself to catch his reflection in the mirror. He'd need to come up with some good excuses to cover all this up. He had a purple-black bruise from the apple of his cheek all the way down to his jaw and his neck was circled with more nasty marks and bruises. His arms and chest were cut up, fortunately Bucky had stabbed his left arm so he was able to do a basic patch up job with his good right arm. His back and chest were scraped and bruised almost beyond recognition, but he knew he'd heal up quick enough anyway. 

Bucky had a bruise to the side of his head where Steve had hit him, and upon inspection, Steve saw some bruising on his ribs and chest, no cuts though fortunately. He drew some relief that he didn't have to break Bucky's arm this time to try wear him down. He'd been lucky. They'd both been lucky no one ended up dead. 

Steve stared at his phone, he could make a phone call ... get Tony and T'Challa here to run tests or ... do  _something_ but ... If they knew he'd gone full Winter Soldier like that ... They'd have no choice but to lock him up wouldn't they? General Ross would insist he be taken into custody because he was too dangerous to live in an apartment with a door he could easily rip off it's hinges. What if there was a next time? What if next time Steve couldn't stop him and he killed everyone on their floor and then ran off into the night? That is exactly what Ross would think. 

 

Bucky groaned slightly, Steve jumped at the sound, unaware fatigue had been catching up with him so quick that he'd almost nodded off sitting bolt upright on the edge of the bed. 

"Buck, you okay?"

The chain links tinkled as Bucky moved.

"Whu- ... What happened? My head-" he asked groggily, looking fuzzy-eyed at his chained wrist. 

Steve was glad to see Bucky's eyes ... not the Winter Soldier. No one else believed him, but Steve knew without a doubt something in Bucky's eyes snapped when he changed into the Winter Soldier, he could  _see_ it.   


Bucky blinked the sleep out of his eyes and noticed the blood and bruises.

"You're hurt." Bucky struggled to sit upright with his arm chained. 

Satisfied that the  _other guy_ was gone, Steve leaned forward and unlocked the chain. 

"I'm okay. We're fine." he whispered, dreading that they'd have to negotiate this at all. 

Bucky had been doing so well, they'd been making progress, regardless of what Tony and T'Challa had said, Steve knew they were doing better. Now they were back at square one and Steve didn't know if Bucky would be able to follow through if he suggested they keep trying. 

This was the kind of thing that would make Bucky want to run away and go into hiding all over again. 

"Steve- ... Did ... Did I do this?"

"It wasn't you."

Steve kept his gaze down, he couldn't see the look in Bucky's eyes, he couldn't face it. He couldn't watch Bucky break, not now. 

"Steve." 

He wanted to take Bucky's hand, to just hold him close and tell him they'd fix this ... but he didn't have a damn clue how he could make that kind of promise when he'd almost had to beat his head in with a vibranium shield. He reached for Bucky's hand regardless but Bucky pulled away.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


	7. Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky struggles to come to terms with his recent Winter Soldier episode and takes drastic action.

Bucky couldn't look at him. Knowing what he  _did_ ... it hurt just watching the bruises around Steve's face and neck blacken by the minute. 

They both knew he'd heal up in no time but that wasn't he problem. The problem was that somehow Bucky had  _done_ that in the first place. 

He began to remember. He'd been in bed, he'd gone to sleep. They'd seen Tony and T'Challa that morning and done some tests, had pancakes. It was all clear as day. Then he was in bed, he was asleep but, suddenly he was back in Siberia. He was lying on a table not a bed. Karpov stood over him with that cursed red book and listed off the words. Counting down from ten. 

**Longing ... Rusted ... Seventeen ... Daybreak ...**

Bucky had screamed but there was no sound, only Karpov's droll voice and those words, those words, those words. 

**Furnace ... Nine ... Benign ... Homecoming ...**

He couldn't move, he couldn't block the voice, he knew what came next. 

 **Freight**   **car.**

Karpov's orders were short, clear and concise. 

_Kill. Escape._

The Winter Soldier had obeyed. Almost. 

 

If it were anyone else, anyone other than Steve, there would be another stroke of red in Bucky's ledger and he'd be in the wind and there was no telling who else would have been killed or what would have happened next. 

He hadn't even hesitated when he saw Steve choking and begging for him to stop. 

 "I can't stay here Steve." he concluded.

It was too dangerous, he didn't know where he'd go but he couldn't stay here with Steve. Steve let his guard down, he  _always_ let his guard down when it was just the two of them. That kind of trust was going to get him killed. It had already almost gotten him killed more than once. The Winter Soldier  _couldn't_ be trusted. Bucky knew that, Steve pretended not to know it too. 

"Let's just ... talk to Shuri. You can't leave Buck, that's just not an option, I won't let them lock you up without a fight, you know that."  

His paper-thin temper snapped ... The kind of temper he hadn't had back in Brooklyn in the 40s, this kind of anger was new. It didn't belong to the Winter Soldier, but it wasn't the Old-Bucky's temper either. It was born out of this new hybrid Post-Brainwashing person he'd become. He didn't like being angry but he was. Even when he was mad, there wasn't an edge in his voice like this, but the Winter Soldier had stripped that softness away leaving all of Bucky's emotions too close to the surface, too harsh and raw. Jagged edges, like the scarred tissue that met his synthetic arm, angry and red along his chest and shoulder.   
He wasn't gentle ... the softness was gone and he couldn't take the edge out of his words even if he tried. 

"You'll  _let_  me make a choice after you're done deciding for me." he responded caustically. "You know who else made choices for me Steve? HYDRA did. Why is it you say you're helping me, you'll treat me differently, protect me, when you're being just like them?" 

The words struck out like a hammer breaking glass. Steve flinched as if he'd been struck. 

"Don't you dare compare me to those monsters Barnes."

Bucky knew he'd struck a nerve and somehow he simultaneously drew satisfaction and misery from the fact. He didn't even understand why and it was starting to make his head ache. 

"You're keeping me here for your sake, not because I'll get better here. I'm getting worse."

"I'm keeping you here because if you walk out the next place you'll find yourself is RAFT prison under Ross's orders." 

"And maybe that's where I belong." he shouted. 

Looking at Steve's bashed up face and bloody arm said enough. Guys that did that to their lovers belonged in a cell, locked up and throw out the key.

"Don't say that." 

It was worse when Steve didn't shout. Bucky  _wanted_ him to shout, wanted him to punch him, give him what he deserved. But just when it seemed like Steve was about to snap, he went all quiet and calm and understanding and it made the situation a thousand times worse. It made the guilt and sadness even heavier. 

"Maybe I-." Steve paused to take a deep breath, he was still figuring out what to say next, Bucky could see him weighing and measuring all the words in his head before he said anything further. 

"Maybe I was hasty, I came on a little strong. You know how impatient I am ... I'm sorry if I make you feel as if you aren't in control of your treatment. Tell me what  _you_ want, what do you want to do?"

Bucky could tell it was taking pretty much all of Steve's restraint, and even though he didn't vocalise it, he was already planning ahead on how he'd talk them both into seeing Shuri. His heart was in the right place but he was stubborn as ever and he'd already decided what they were going to do.

"I want... " 

_What do I want?_

"I don't know what I want. But this isn't it." he gestured vaguely at the ruined apartment, Steve's bruised jaw and face. 

"I want you to stop making excuses for me." 

Excuses never worked.

Excuses almost got them killed in Siberia. 

"You made excuses rather than telling Tony the truth." 

"You know I did that to protect you and to protect Tony." 

"Well it didn't fucking work."

He got up, sitting around was making his legs itch, no, it wasn't quite an itch, something else, he didn't like how it felt. 

 

 

"I need to be alone." 

It was hard to be alone in such a small apartment. Steve could have gotten something bigger, something flashier, but it really wouldn't have suited him. The serum made him super-sized but inside he was still just a kid from Brooklyn. Bucky liked that best about him, he liked remembering those parts. Maybe Steve liked those parts too, but that was a long time ago, it felt like none of that stuff was left, not really. They had each other, sure, but even they had changed dramatically.

"I'll be ... around" Steve shrugged.

Bucky wasn't sure what to do. He closed the door behind him, the door into the spare room. It was easier to sit and think here, it was neutral. The walls were plain and bare, the curtains a pale cream, the wardrobe and drawers empty. They didn't have guests very often, Steve flirted with the idea of making the room into a studio of sorts, but it served as a good "quiet room" when Bucky was having a bad day. 

This was probably one of his worst days, at least, the worst he'd had in a while. 

He lashed out because he was scared. Scared of staying with Steve and hurting him, killing him, scared of the Winter Soldier who seemed to be more volatile than ever, scared of being alone again. It was strange, he'd lived alone in hiding in Romania for a while and it had been  _good_. Good paled in comparison to living with Steve though. It was better than good, it was  _best_. And yet ... Part of him didn't deserve this and the other part of him was actively trying to destroy it. 

It had only been about ten minutes before Steve knocked on the door and cautiously opened it. Bucky didn't turn to face him, didn't move at all, perched on the bed with his back toward the door. Steve quietly left a notebook and pen down on the bed, a silent peace offering that Bucky knew he didn't deserve. He didn't move until the door clicked behind him and he knew Steve was gone.  

He flipped open the book after a few minutes of staring blankly at the cover. It was plain black pleather-effect, a little scuffed and curling at the corners. A relatively nondescript book by all accounts and yet, when he flipped it open it was a map of scattered thoughts hastily coalescing in chunks across the yellowing pages. 

He traced his fingers over the words and sentences, picking out fragments of his own fragmented memory. 

_Cyclone._

_Odessa._

_Leonid Novokov._

_ Howling Commandos. _

_ 32557038. _

_ Stark Expo. _

_ Pancakes. _

_ 16/12/1991. _

He didn't know how much time had passed. It could have been twenty minutes or two hours, he wasn't sure. The rest of the apartment was quiet but he was certain Steve hadn't left and no one had come in. Even while he was reading, he'd have noticed the noise, he'd have known. 

He padded into the kitchen to find Steve reading at the table, a glass of orange juice half drunk. The scene looked completely normal except for Steve's injuries, it made Bucky's gut twist painfully. 

He knew Steve knew he was there, Steve's hearing was super-charged too, but he pretended not to notice him. It wasn't a cold shoulder, Steve was just waiting for Bucky to initiate conversation, awaiting permission to engage. 

He slid the notebook back into the box and slumped into the chair opposite Steve. 

"Are you going to tell Stark about what happened?"

Steve put his book down. 

"No. I'll make up some vague excuse to lay low for a couple of days till the bruising goes down." 

"Let me stitch that up at least, you're bleeding through your shirt."

Steve didn't argue, nor did he flinch as Bucky carefully stitched up the knife wound in his arm. It was a little easier to talk while his focus was elsewhere and his hands were busy. One puppy dog glance was enough to make Bucky choke up but when he didn't make eye contact it was a little easier. 

"I think ... I've been trying to protect you." he started.

Steve chuckled slightly, Bucky almost stabbed him with the needle, accidentally of course. 

"How do you rate your performance so far?" 

"About as good as yours. Stop moving." 

Steve sucked in a breath when a dab of antiseptic met his still-open wound. 

"Don't be a baby." Bucky chastised, it was almost a little familiar for a second ... back in Brooklyn in the 40's after one of Steve's back-alley brawls. 

He hadn't been so big back then, but Bucky had washed his fair share of cuts and grazes. He'd told Steve to suck it up back then too, all the while trying to be gentle while patching up his best friend. 

"I was living peacefully in Romania until you sprung a SWAT team and the Black friggin Panther on me, oh and all the Avengers too." 

"Well when you put it like that-" 

"But I almost got you killed ... and I've almost killed you myself a bunch of times." 

"We make quite the pair." 

He threaded through the last stitch, knotted once, knotted twice and snipped away the excess thread.

"I don't think the words or the memories can be pulled out ... I don't think I can be deprogrammed. I-" he sighed, "I saw how hopeful you were, I thought you and Stark might even make up if I volunteered to be his human guinea-pig so you could sort things out while he derived a sliver of pleasure out of electro-shocking me and picking at my brain ... yknow, to make up for killing his parents I guess."

There was no undoing what he'd done to Howard and Maria, the least he could do was allow Tony to use him as a punching bag for a while, although he'd already had a few good swings in Siberia. 

"I didn't think he'd make such a mess of things to be honest ... If anything my memories are worse and whenever I remembered trigger words before it was never vivid enough to trigger my programming." he shook his head, and pressed his hand to his temple, his mild headache was starting to turn up a notch but he could handle it for now. 

"I was just going to leave the words in there, keep a low profile. It worked well enough till Zemo showed up. I don't know who else knows those words, who else will try and use them. It was a reasonable risk before, but now? People know I'm alive, they know who I am and what I can do. I don't know what to do but laying low isn't a good plan anymore." 

Steve was quiet. He stayed quiet for longer than Bucky would have liked, for a change, he was growing impatient now. Finally Steve spoke. 

"What if we changed the words?'

If they could change the words they wouldn't have to worry about anyone digging up HYDRA's files to use him again. New code words would mean that only Tony, T'Challa and Steve would know how to activate his programming. Maybe it wasn't Steve's ideal, he'd rather no programming at all, but it was a good enough alternative to the other less effective solutions they'd tried so far. 

Bucky laughed, wearily, bitterly ... if only it were so easy. 

"You know what they did to put those words in there?"

"Something tells me I don't want to know." 

Bucky shook his head. Maybe someday it would be worth discussing but he doubted it. What did they have to gain from that particular discussion? 

He glanced at the ruined wall ... At least they'd have something to do while they were under self-imposed house arrest. 

"I'll head downtown to pick up supplies to fix that wall. We can talk decorating when I get back ... Maybe we'll figure something out patching up the wall." 

Steve smiled, the kind of genuine beaming smile that made his heart break and soar all at once. 

"Patch up the wall and your head, good plan. Don't take too long." 

Steve leaned forward to give him a parting kiss, his busted lip felt weird. A kiss was pleasant but- it was unpleasant because Bucky knew it hurt a little too. 

He changed clothes, grabbed a bag and left. 

It wasn't often he could go out on his own like this. Actually ... he  _couldn't_ go out like this, period. Part of his "probation" of sorts was that he had to stick to his apartment or, when he did go out, he usually had to be with Steve. It was a wise move, Steve was the only thing that could take him down if he went "full terrorist" or whatever political spin on the term Ross used. 

The hardware store wasn't too far, Bucky found it easily enough. He passed the paint, the plasterboard and nails and other bits and pieces and sought out the aisle with combat knives, saws and tool blades. He had one shot at this and a narrow time frame before someone came after him. The clock was ticking ever since he set foot outside the apartment. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter we begin to see more of Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky bleed into this story. You can read the two fics independent of one another but hopefully you enjoy reading both ;) 
> 
> If you enjoyed reading Boxes, check out Your Pal, Your Buddy, Your Bucky, the prequel/crossover to this fic. 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078166/chapters/24709662


End file.
